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The best tour of Thailand for 2018

Are there any truly untouched corners of this country left? On a grown-up tour of her favourite childhood holiday haunts in the Gulf of Thailand, Michelle Jana Chan seeks out the best places to stay, and is delighted to discover not all is lost

Sweeping around in a loop from the skinny isthmus leading to Malaysia, across to the east and the ancient temples on the Cambodian border, the Gulf of Thailand has the best of the country’s islands and beaches. But it also holds some of our most sun-kissed, life-in-a-backpack, live-forever memories. More than a holiday, more than a destination, it is a pocket of nostalgia, a flashback to a more innocent, more exuberant time. Here are some of my highlights.

Chiva Som, Thailand

Lucas Allen

KOH SAMUI: THE FEELGOOD ISLAND

I recall a highly untraditional Christmas 25 years ago on Bangkok’s Khao San Road, heading south afterwards in search of a beach – that tireless backpacker quest. Koh Samui and its two sister specks – Koh Pha Ngan, home of the full-moon party, and Koh Tao, the place for the come-down – represented paradise. As a teenager I could not believe what I had found. Much has changed here – from the traffic to the prices – but Koh Samui still casts a spell on me. I keep coming back although wonder whether it’s only for sentimental reasons. Then I see the island again and, beneath the layers, its blow-away natural beauty, so easily-breezily accessible from Bangkok. Koh Samui is one of those clever catch-all islands, much like Ibiza, which brokers the unholy alliance of hedonism and wellness, purists and party animals. There are yoga schools and health resorts, gilded pagodas and shrines, a rum distillery and beach bars – and three million coconut trees (with a lovely building regulation stating that nothing should be built higher than one).

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Four Seasons, Thailand

Lucas Allen

WHERE TO STAY ON KOH SAMUI

Although long known for attracting backpackers, the island is now about a smarter, more discerning crowd. It’s grown up with us, in a way.

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FOUR SEASONS RESORT KOH SAMUI

Oddly perhaps, I feel the changes across Koh Samui have been strangely imperceptible. From one year to the next I might notice a new hotel or bar or an unexpected set of traffic lights. But I didn’t see the leaps and bounds the island was really making, which probably kickstarted when the Four Seasons opened 10 years ago in the north-west of the island – with infinity pools in all the hillside villas, designed by Bill Bensley (a flamboyant architect in the region) and the first private beach access. It is still a place to be seen. Its latest hangout is the CoCoRum Bar beside a 50-metre pool with a Proof & Company-crafted menu of small-batch artisanal spirits; daiquiris are served with Peruvian ceviche and chicken anticucho. I overhear a couple form New York talking about their honeymoon at the Four Seasons Florence, and how their new friends by the pool ‘must go there’. In the old days, Chaweng chat used to be about the cheapest hostel in Hanoi.

Four Seasons, Thailand

Lucas Allen

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PANACEA

One of the big-ticket places to stay on Koh Samui is Panacea. Set high on a hill, this was the private home of former model Evgenia Slyusarenko and Pierre Andurand, one of the world’s top hedge-fund managers, who have now opened it up for hire, with a mix of four-, five- or six-bedroom villas. Hong Kong-based architect David Clarke designed the spacious pavilions – with vaulted cedar shingle ceilings and seamless sliding doors – filled with tropical hardwoods, silk fabrics and petrified wood that’s over a million years old. The landscaping is by Bill Bensley, who is also known for his gardens and outdoor spaces. Panacea’s biggest villa, Praana, has enough space to throw a party for 300 – and they could all fit in the pool at the end of the night. This is far from the beach huts on Chaweng, but something else entirely. There’s a kids’ room, a private cinema, gambling den and nightclub, as well as a tennis court and Muay Thai boxing ring with the coolest, hardest pint-sized instructor on the planet, Aan Deesamer, who speaks English like a Scouser and whose arm-length tattoos read ‘I’ll fight til death’ (spanning his left arm) and ‘than be a coward’ (on the right). He taught me how to defend myself using elbows and knees, while dazzling an opponent with jazz hands.

Kamalaya, Thailand

Kamalaya

KAMALAYA

At the other end of the island is Kamalaya, a jungly hillside wellness retreat where the architecture, intertwined with nature, is built around a cave used for 200 years by hermit monks. All the personal mentors have been monks for at least a decade, which can make for powerful intense sessions; you sense it is a vocation for these practitioners rather than a job. The Embracing Change programme focuses on life’s big transitions, such as separation and redundancy. Prepare to open up. The hotel is launching a Kamalaya experience online so that guest can continue the good habits at home.

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Koh Kood, Thailand

Lucas Allen

KOH KOOD: THE GO-SLOW ISLAND

There are some, of course, who believe Koh Samui has changed too much. If you want something more kicked back, more chilled, then way out on the eastern side of the Gulf of Thailand is Koh Kood, a forested island with waterfalls and mangrove shores. Thinly populated, most of the island’s couple of thousand residents make their living from fishing, coconuts and rubber. Its life is in the slow, sandy lane where drivers stop for ducks to cross the road.

Koh Kood, Thailand

Lucas Allen

WHERE TO STAY ON KOH KOOD

I was first here seven years ago and little has changed. There are still beach cabanas, boho homestays and hammocks in the trees, as well as some secret little places to pitch up.

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SHANTAA

One such place is family-run Shantaa with its pretty villas, including one toes-in-the-sand cabin on the beach. Everyone I met told me this hotel served the best food on the island – and I loved the curries, the raw sea-bass salad with peanut sauce, and mango and sticky rice.

HIGH SEASON

Another hideaway is High Season, which feels anything but; instead it is properly lo-fi, go-slow and unfilled, with gorgeous thatch and bamboo villas, and a gigantic pool fronting the beach. There is a crow’s nest in the palm fronds for sundowners, and massage tables below on the sand. This is the place to relive your misspent youth backpacking around Thailand.

Soneva Kiri, Thailand

Lucas Allen

SONEVA KIRI

The big-hitter on Koh Kood is Soneva Kiri, which is spread across 150 acres of rainforest with round-the-clock butler service. The villas are supersized, there’s an open-air cinema and a children’s play den in the shape of a manta ray suspended above the forest floor. They have everything to meet the exacting needs of the this-is-my-Christmas-holiday-it-better-be-perfect crowd. Which might make you imagine you’ll be longing for the simple life – but in fact you probably won’t.

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THE MAINLAND: A LITTLE BIT OF OLD THAILAND

The greatest revelation of my journey around the Gulf of Thailand was not on the castaway islands at all, but back on the mainland. From Bangkok it’s only a couple hours’ drive to the beach at Hua Hin. No wonder the Thai royal family had their seaside retreat here (notice the forbidding navy vessels that cruise the coastline – whether the family are here or not). Because of the royal connection, this area is also the smart weekend getaway for Bangkok’s Hi-So, or high society, the entitled elite who break the speed limit in their Lamborghinis or cruise here in chauffeured Bentleys with entourages that often – frustratingly – close the roads till they’re past.

Chiva Som, Thailand

Lucas Allen

WHERE TO STAY IN HUA HIN

CHIVA-SOM

Although no secret, the first great stop is Chiva-Som, more a religion than a hotel, and the world’s number one destination retreat. Opened more than 20 years ago, it was a game-changer then and has kept up its game ever since. The offerings are broad and deep: from Pranayama breathing to quantum therapeutics to cranio-myofacial release – all stress- reduction techniques. I would fly halfway around the world for Chi Nei Tsang, the strange and powerful deep massage of the abdomen said to balance the nervous system. It can make people weep, or induce a thunderclap headache. Guests come for what they know – doctors, therapists, physios, trainers and nutritionists – as much as pioneering programmes and visiting specialists offering Biyo Shinkyu, chronic pain management and structural alignment. Which is why not everyone cheered when Chiva-Som said they were shaking things up a bit, even though this design makeover was to be in the sure hands of Ed Tuttle (Amanjiwo, Le Mélézin, Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme). The renovated rooms are breathe-easy beautiful with pale hardwood furnishings, blond bamboo walls, soft Jim Thompson silks, Thai ceramics and Laotian-drum tables. Regulars need not fret.

Khanom, Thailand

Lucas Allen

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FURTHER SOUTH: KUI BURI AND KHANOM

From Hua Hin, there is one right direction and one wrong one. East is Pattaya, probably the most horrible part of Thailand. Don’t go. But set out in the opposite way, travelling indirectly towards Malaysia, and you’ll find something else entirely: sheltered sandy beaches and a sprinkling of historic sights; forested mountains rising abruptly behind the coastal strip with quintessential karstic headlands and islands. From the potholed road, the railway track meanders to and fro. I pass banana trees, coconut palms and pampas.

Khanom, Thailand

Lucas Allen

WHERE TO STAY IN KUI BURI

After an hour’s drive is a little hotel called X2, designed by Duangrit Bunnag, one of South-East Asia’s most celebrated architects. It is a modern design hotspot using wood, stone and glass. The crowd is young and Thai; they seem to know they’ve found something very au courant.

WHERE TO STAY IN KHANOM

Continue south to the unspoiled, understated district of Khanom with its temples, waterfalls and limestone formations – and not another visitor in sight. And luckily there is somewhere lovely to stay. The owners of Aava Resort & Spa, a pair of Finns, tell me they fell in love with the area on a backpacking trip. ‘We only saw fishermen and cows on the beach,’ says Atte Savisalo. ‘There’s nowhere else left like this. It’s a little piece of Old Thailand.’

The architecture is a clever fusion of Scandi and Thai designed by Dsign Vertti Kivi & Co (the agency behind Finnair’s sleek interiors). It comprises a couple of dozen villas, some with ladders directly off their deck, plunging into the pool, and a white-sand beach that squeaks underfoot with salas, loungers and bean bags. The restaurant serves fiery Thai red curries, papaya salads, thin-crust pizza and pickled fish Scandi-style. The all-Thai reggae band playing Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff hits is the best this side of Kingston. The childcare is plentiful; no one could be sweeter than Ying Shumshu. This place is a find. Whisper it.

The rest of Khanom is little more than a few rustic cabanas and seafood shacks on the beach – and that’s the charm, of course. In the markets there are no souvenirs. Vendors speak no English, not even enough to barter. Khanom reminds me of childhood trips – before the blur of teenage years – nearly 40 years ago when Thais were known as the loveliest people in the world. And this is Thailand how I remember it at its best: through the eyes of a child. It really doesn’t get more poignant than that.

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Four Seasons, Thailand

Lucas Allen

BOOK IT NOW: GETTING AROUND THAILAND

Cleveland Collection (+44 20 3111 0805; clevelandcollection.co.uk) offer a 7 night stay at Aava Resort and Spa from £1,149 per person sharing. This includes flights, transfers, accommodation in a Deluxe Bungalow and daily breakfast. Or a 7 night stay at Soneva Kiri from £2,949 per person sharing. This includes flights, transfers, accommodation in a Bayview Pool Villa Suite and daily breakfast.